New Guideline Helps Stop Misleading Teething Necklace Sites

A company
advertising amber teething necklaces, Bambeado, has been
made to remove misleading claims from its website after a
complaint was laid with the Advertising Standards Authority,
using a new guideline they helped develop
alongside Medsafe in 2013. The decision the ASA has released today is
the 16th one regarding amber teething necklaces since
February 2013, and all 16 of those complaints were
successful. The new advertising guideline was developed in
response to the large number of advertisements for these
products that were found to be misleading.

Many
advertisers have claimed that amber will be warmed by skin
contact, causing it to leak out succinic acid that will then
be absorbed through the skin for therapeutic benefit. When
confronted by the ASA, however, none of these advertisers
have provided evidence that substantiates any of their
claims. The new guideline lists a large number of
unacceptable claims, many taken from advertisements that
have been found to be misleading over the past year.
Examples of unacceptable claims from the guideline
include:

• “Do they really work? Yes they
do”• “When amber is warmed on the skin, the skin's
warmth causes the amber to release trace amounts of healing
oils”• “Relieve or assist with teething pain in
babies.”

Many parents turn to amber necklaces when their
babies start teething, but they may not be aware that the
claims made about these products are very often misleading
and unsubstantiated. They are also not without risk, and the
Ministry of Consumer Affairs has issued a product safety warning, noting that
“Babies should always be supervised when wearing amber
necklaces – there is a risk for strangulation or a hanging
hazard.”

Many other countries have also had problems
with these products. Other government bodies such as Health Canada, the Australian Competition & Consumer
Commission, and the UK Trading Standards Institute have also
issued safety warnings similar to the one issued by the
Ministry of Consumer Affairs. Ireland’s Health Service Executive has also issued
a safety warning, and the National Consumer Agency in
Ireland has banned all sale of these products due to
safety concerns. The French National Order of Pharmacists
has banned French pharmacists from selling them as part of
their ethical obligation to “contribute to the fight
against quackery”.

All of these complaints to the
Advertising Standards Authority regarding amber teething
necklaces have been made by Mark Hanna, a consumer advocate
from Auckland. Mark thinks the concept of informed consent
is of the utmost importance when it comes to making health
decisions, and finds it profoundly worrying that many
therapeutic advertisements contain misleading claims. In
raising these issues with the Advertising Standards
Authority, he hopes to reduce the amount of misinformation
in New Zealand advertising and thereby even the playing
field for everyday people who are too busy to look into how
much, or how little, evidence there is behind any particular
claim.

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